Gastric cancer is a disease in which malignant cells form in the lining of the stomach. Stomach or gastric cancer can develop in any part of the stomach and may spread throughout the stomach and to other organs; particularly the esophagus, lungs and the liver. Stomach cancer is the fourth most common cancer worldwide with 930,000 cases diagnosed in 2002. It is a disease with a high death rate (800,000 per year) making it the second most common cause of cancer death worldwide after lung cancer. It is more common in men and occurs more often in Asian countries and in developing countries. (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/.)
It represents roughly 2% (25,500 cases) of all new cancer cases yearly in the United States, but it is more common in other countries. It is the leading cancer type in Korea, with 20.8% of malignant neoplasms. In Japan gastric cancer remains the most common cancer for men. Each year in the United States, about 13,000 men and 8,000 women are diagnosed with stomach cancer. Most are over 70 years old.
Stomach cancer is the fourth most common cancer worldwide, after cancers of the lung, breast, and colon and rectum. Furthermore, stomach cancer remains the second most common cause of death from cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2007 there were an estimated one million new cases, nearly 70% of them in developing countries, and about 800,000 deaths (http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/Global_Facts_and_Figures_2007_rev2.pdf.)
Tremendous geographic variation exists in the incidence of this disease around the world. Rates of the disease are highest in Asia and parts of South America and lowest in North America. The highest death rates are recorded in Chile, Japan, South America, and the former Soviet Union.
Gastric cancer is often diagnosed at an advanced stage, because screening is not performed in most of the world, except in Japan (and in a limited fashion in Korea) where early detection is often achieved. Thus, it continues to pose a major challenge for healthcare professionals. Risk factors for gastric cancer are Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection, smoking, high salt intake, and other dietary factors. A few gastric cancers (1% to 3%) are associated with inherited gastric cancer predisposition syndromes. E-cadherin mutations occur in approximately 25% of families with an autosomal dominant predisposition to diffuse type gastric cancers. This subset of gastric cancer has been termed hereditary diffuse gastric cancer.12 It may be useful to provide genetic counseling and to consider prophylactic gastrectomy in young, asymptomatic carriers of germ-line truncating
The wall of the stomach is made up of 3 layers of tissue: the mucosal (innermost) layer, the muscularis (middle) layer, and the serosal (outermost) layer. Gastric cancer begins in the cells lining the mucosal layer and spreads through the outer layers as it grows. Four types of standard treatment are used. Treatment for gastric cancer may involve surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or chemoradiation. Surgery is the primary treatment for gastric cancer. The goal of surgery is to accomplish a complete resection with negative margins (R0 resection). However, approximately 50% of patients with locoregional gastric cancer cannot undergo an R0 resection. R1 indicates microscopic residual cancer (positive margins); and R2 indicates gross (macroscopic) residual cancer but not distant disease. Patient outcome depends on the initial stage of the cancer at diagnosis (NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™).
The 5-year survival rate for curative surgical resection ranges from 30-50% for patients with stage II disease and from 10-25% for patients with stage III disease. These patients have a high likelihood of local and systemic relapse. Metastasis occurs in 80-90% of individuals with stomach cancer, with a six month survival rate of 65% in those diagnosed in early stages and less than 15% of those diagnosed in late stages.
Thus, there remains a need for new efficacious and safe treatment option for gastric cancer, prostate carcinoma, oral cavity carcinomas, oral squamous carcinoma (OSCC), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), H. pylori-induced MALT lymphoma, colon carcinoma/colorectal cancer, glioblastoma, non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), cervical carcinoma, human breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancers, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, ovarian cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, liver cancer, brain tumors of different phenotypes, leukemias such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), lung cancer, Ewing's sarcoma, endometrial cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, epithelial cancer of the larynx, oesophageal carcinoma, oral carcinoma, carcinoma of the urinary bladder, ovarian carcinomas, renal cell carcinoma, atypical meningioma, papillary thyroid carcinoma, brain tumors, salivary duct carcinoma, cervical cancer, extranodal T/NK-cell lymphomas, Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and malignant solid tumors of the lung and breast and other tumors enhancing the well-being of the patients without using chemotherapeutic agents or other agents which may lead to severe side effects.
The present invention incorporates peptides which stimulate the immune system and act as anti-tumor-agents in a non-invasive fashion.